


I Found Myself With You

by bibliomaniac



Category: Klaus (2019)
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Time, Fluff, Frottage, Intercrural Sex, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Out, Mutual Pining, Size Difference, Size Kink, but prior to any other...christmases., chapter 6 is about m chapter 7 is where the e rating comes in, post the first christmas lol how about that, this is set post...uh how can i put this without spoilers, which this will have by the way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-08 06:02:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21471217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliomaniac/pseuds/bibliomaniac
Summary: After everything settles down, Jesper is trying very hard to not think about how he's developed feelings for Klaus.Unfortunately, he's not very good at not thinking about it.More fortunately, it actually doesn't matter that he's not good at it. He never needed to hide in the first place, after all.
Relationships: Jesper Johanssen/Klaus
Comments: 376
Kudos: 1672





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song winter sun by balance problems
> 
> i can sense it now. this fic is going to be 90% banter. partly because jesper has that kind of energy, partly because i love banter. there also might be smut in there, i haven't decided yet. this will NOT be more than three chapters, i REFUSE to let it be. 
> 
> if there are any content warnings i will put them in the author's notes prior to the chapter, but i do not believe this first chapter qualifies? if there are i apologize and please do let me know, i'll update this for the future

Jesper had discovered a lot of things since coming to Smeerensburg. The importance of a good set of long underwear, for example, for the colder days. Which is...most of them. They're all colder days, though he's growing used to it. Or the less tangible stuff—how wonderful it is to see people smiling because of something you did. How good it feels to play a part in life, to have people who know you and like you and rely on you. Or the people. He'd discovered Alva, and Margu, and Mogens even though he's kind of an asshole, and...Klaus.

Which brings him to his point here, in this little thought expedition, which is that he's discovered the value of being busy.

Sure, it's part that he has a lot of work to get done, especially now that they're planning on expanding to other cities. And sure, it's part the whole thing about—being a functioning cog in a bigger piece of machinery, and so forth and so on.

But also, most relevantly, it keeps him from thinking about Klaus.

Except for. Right now. When he just thought about him twice, and technically a bonus third time when he thought the word 'machinery' which made him think of Klaus's toys which made him think of how Klaus makes the most delicate things with those—with those hands—

Jesper makes a frustrated noise, ruffling through his hair with his hands, and decides to sort letters _extra_ hard today. With vigor! And pizzazz! And little flourishes!

The problem with that mostly is that Jesper has never been particularly athletic. You could even say, rudely, that he was clumsy. So the flourishes and vigor and such means that he drops a pile of letters, which means he's down on the floor picking up letters, which means he considers briefly sobbing onto the floor in a fit of dramatics. He doesn't cry, in the end, but he does stay on the floor with his cheek pressed against the wood and his back upwards in a kind of downwards triangle, thinking maybe being busy isn't so valuable after all.

"I see you're busy," Alva says dryly from somewhere he cannot see, being as he is on the floor. 

"Being busy," Jesper says waspishly, "is overrated."

"Right," she drawls, rapping her fist twice smartly against the wood of his counter, which is startling enough that he yelps and hits his head somewhere or other on his way to standing back up. Alva is undeterred by his best glare, looking at him with an eyebrow raised. "So I've sensed something is off with you lately."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Jesper says, knowing exactly what she's talking about.

"The sighing. The daydreaming. That dumb look you get on your face when you're trying not to think about something and failing."

"Hey," he protests, mostly on principle.

"What, that isn't ringing a bell?"

The issue is, of course, not that it's not ringing a bell, but that the bell is a call to attention he'd really rather not answer. "My face isn't dumb," he says instead. "Your face is dumb."

Nailed it.

Alva huffs irritably and leans forward over the counter. "Stop being insufferable. You're deflecting about something. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're mooning over someone."

Alva is right an unfortunate amount of the time, and Jesper rather wishes this weren't one of them. As it stands, he stiffens and brings a nervous hand to one of his buttons. "What? Nahhhhh."

Her eyes narrow, and Jesper reflexively takes a step back. "Someone...you don't want me to know about."

"Because I prefer you know nothing," Jesper starts, the beginning of a half-baked insult he knew wouldn't land anyway, and she leans forward even further.

"It's not me."

"You're sure about that?" Jesper asks desperately, which is a bad attempt even for him and would be disastrous if she called his bluff, but she's getting awfully close and he really doesn't like it.

"Very sure," she says, deadpan. "Mogens?"

"Yep. It's him."

"Mrs. Krum."

"Also her. I'm building an indiscriminate harem. Come one, come all."

When she takes her weight off the counter, steps back, he thinks he's joked his way out of the interrogation. He's too busy being relieved to notice the gleam in her eyes.

"You haven't stayed for dinner at Klaus's house a single night this week."

The breath leaves him like she's punched it out of him, which she might as well have. With his remaining breath, in an oddly high pitch, he says, "I'm _very_ busy."

"I thought busy was overrated," she says, with all the satisfaction of someone who knows she's right, or of a wolf that's latched onto its prey, or of a friend who's about to end the life of their other friend who's done nothing at all wrong ever.

"And it is! Keeping me away from my—friend. Good friend. Whose dinners I would gladly attend, if it weren't for being busy, which is overrated, which is why I was saying that, but unfortunately it is how it is, case closed—" Goodness, these long underwear might be overrated too. He's starting to get very sweaty. Cold days who? This is obviously completely unrelated to the conversation, which is both fine and normal in addition to being okay.

"You have a crush on Klaus," she says, delighted, even though her poor friend Jesper is right over there dying. 

"How could someone with such a dumb face say something—so wrong?"

He knows he's misstepped immediately, because her glare is actually much better than his. 

"No dumb face. Good face. Shh," he says, like he's dealing with a particularly recalcitrant horse.

"Look. Jesper. This isn't up for discussion. I know. You know. We both know at this point. Cut the bullshit, it's not funny anymore and some of us _are_ busy and have better things to do than play verbal crush tennis with idiots."

Jesper clasps a hand to his heart. "Ow."

"And?"

"And I'm not saying it."

"But you do."

Jesper looks away, pursing his lips. "If I did it wouldn't matter anyway. So it doesn't bear talking about. Is the point. We can be done now. No more tennis. Actually let's never mention it again. Tennis, crushes, Klaus—"

"Jesper," Alva says, and oh God her voice is all gentle and nice and that probably means he's going to break down and tell her everything. "What makes you think it wouldn't matter?"

"Because," he snaps, "he does not and would not like me in—in _that way,_ okay, so I'm going to be busy and I'm going to get over it and it will be _fine,_ and this entire conversation will be completely useless to have had—be having—whatever! It doesn't matter! It's fine. I'm fine. Shut up."

She is not, notably, saying anything, and he has, notably, broken down and told her everything.

At least he predicted it. Takes some of the sting out of things. Or not really, but apparently denial is sort of his forte now.

Alva is looking at him, tapping her foot on the ground and reminding him very much that she is indeed a schoolteacher. His schoolteachers never liked him much, admittedly likely because he didn't do anything. "What makes you think that he could never like you?"

"So we're just going to drag all my insecurities out on full display?" he retorts, a bit angry, a lot embarrassed and wanting this conversation to be over. "Okay. Fine. Number one, I'm a man, not everybody is into that. Exhibit A." Jesper points at her, and she snorts, shrugging in acknowledgement. "Number two, there's still the thing where I betrayed his trust and lied to him and used him and that's, I hear, not—not on everybody's, you know, relationship wishlist, or whatever."

"Fair," she says, still tapping her foot.

"Number three, not everybody likes everybody. Some people just aren't desirable to other people. Exhibit A again."

She bows, but he thinks she might be mocking him.

"Number four. He still—" Here, his voice cracks embarrassingly. "He loved his wife so much. I mean, he spent years there all alone, lost, trying to honor her memory—"

"And you're the one who helped bring him purpose again," she says, foot tapping faster, eye twitching minutely like she regrets saying it.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Jesper demands, and the fight slumps out of him. "He loves her still. I know he does. I don't—even if there were a chance. Which there isn't. I can't...compete with that. I wouldn't want to."

He cares about him too much for that, he doesn't say, and Alva doesn't ask.

She probably knows anyway, smug bastard. Too smart for her own good. Or his own good, more like. It's probably why they're such good friends.

Her foot stops tapping, she stops surveying him silently, and she nods. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay," she repeats. "Stay for dinner again. He wants you there." Her eye twitches again, but Jesper ignores it, because he has shit of his own to deal with. Clearly.

Jesper sniffs, scuffing his toe against the wood. "Ugh. I mean. I mean...fine, yeah."

It's just a crush, anyway. Right? And he'd acted perfectly normally before he realized what the fluttering in his chest and the heat in his cheeks was. He can do it again. It's fine. He's fine.

And at least it's probably a sign that he's matured emotionally that he knows that's denial too. So there's...that, very minor, very un-comforting tidbit. Another Smeerensburg-patented special discovery.

Alva's turned on her heel just as fast as she came in, off to do whatever it is she does (presumably...teaching?), so he's alone again, with nothing but a lot of letters and a lot of thinking to be done.

But he doesn't much want to think, so he turns back to the letters and rubs his hands together. Right. Busy busy busy.

Maybe it'll work better the second go around, he thinks, in an attempt at optimism that's probably just more denial again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cws for this chapter: food mention, mention of alcohol and alcohol abuse, emetophobia warning (brief mention), some angst and self-negativity. this one is overall a bit heavier tonally than the last one so do be careful of that

The dinners had started maybe a month or so after the first Christmas, in between the excitement and the actual ability to start planning expansion. Both Jesper and Klaus—well, definitely Jesper, but if Klaus was just playing along he was nice enough not to say anything about it—were floundering a bit, wondering how to carry on, how to keep the energy going when Christmas was a whole year away. Especially when...well, let's not mince words about it; Klaus has a lot of work to do making the toys, and Jesper is...not always part of that. He can't be. Both because of his work, and because he's not really that good with the toys, for all that he tries.

Jesper had been the one to suggest it.

"Hey, Klaus, you know how to cook, right?" he had asked while standing around awkwardly watching Klaus put the finishing touches on a charming carved rabbit that hides eggs for children to find. (Weird, but he's sure the kid will love it anyway.) The Sámi people have started their trek home for the day, so it's just Klaus and Jesper. The feeling of it is both nostalgic and...tense, somehow, like something in the air is waiting for a change. Jesper isn't sure what, so he just goes with the first idea in his head. It is not the first time he's done this. "We could...I don't know. You can say no."

"You could tell me what you mean, first," Klaus says, eyes flicking up to meet Jesper's before returning to the rabbit. "Before I say no to it, that is."

"Right," Jesper says. He's not sure why he's nervous. He's been nervous more often around Klaus, somehow—something about his hands, something about the warmth in his gaze, something about...something? He doesn't know. "Right, what I was thinking was maybe we could have dinner."

Klaus makes an uncharacteristic error in his painting, his paintbrush jerking in a jagged line across the rabbit's face. He looks up at Jesper slowly. "What?"

"I mean! Well, I mean—the thing is, right now I don't have to come here all the time."

Klaus's mouth opens, then closes, his eyebrows furrowing. "I don't follow. You know you're welcome here whenever you please."

Jesper feels his cheeks heating. He pats at them, disturbed. "Well, yes. I mean, no. I mean, thank you? But I don't have...a reason. Officially. Not until it gets closer to Christmas."

Klaus still looks confused.

"So I could come. For dinner."

Klaus stares at the rabbit, still confused, but Jesper thinks he might see a hint of a smile there too. "My answer stands. If you are happy here, I want you here."

The heat in his cheeks grows more intense. Jesper flaps in a flustered way at them, wondering why air is suddenly a bit harder to obtain in here. Maybe it's...the altitude. Or something. Must be. "And we could invite everybody," he blurts out. "I know our Sámi friends have to leave early but, well, if they wanted to—and Alva could come."

"Alva," Klaus repeats slowly, and the hint of a smile is gone. "Ah. Yes."

"I know that means more to feed, but we could all bring ingredients," Jesper babbles on, feeling oddly like he's said something wrong somewhere. Not that that's an unfamiliar feeling, but he doesn't like it, either. "And, uh, you could teach me to cook? Or I could ask—I don't want to, you know. Use..." He's running out of steam but still going, not knowing how to stop. "I could learn. I could help."

"No," Klaus says, returning his attention to the rabbit, painting over its scar, giving back its guileless smile. 

Jesper deflates. "Oh. Yeah. Of course not."

He doesn't look at him when he corrects, "As in, no, it is fine. We can have dinner with our friends." A pause. "And you don't have to help. I know you're not using me."

Everything's gone as Jesper didn't-really-plan, so it's odd that he feels a bit like crying.

"I would be a bad person to use, in this regard," Klaus continues thoughtfully. "I'm not _that_ good of a cook."

The moment twists, and comes back just the way it always is with them, easy and uncomplicated. "You're fine," Jesper says dismissively.

"If I were a cook worth taking advantage of, fine would not be the word you said."

"No, I mean, you're not bad!"

Klaus chuckles quietly. "I get the point, Jesper. I'm not the best cook."

"Well, who's the best anything," Jesper reassures, clapping Klaus on the shoulder. "You could be worse! You're...average-ish!"

Klaus laughs louder. "I'd be insulted if it weren't true," he says. "But you're the one who asked me to cook for these dinners. And since it is me you have asked, I will do my best. Which is just fine."

And the conversation had moved on smoothly from there, like it tended to between them, and Jesper had stayed until the moon was high in the sky and woken up late in the morning, and he had firmly forgotten about any weird or out of place feelings or thoughts he might have had, and blah blah blah, et cetera et cetera: they'd started having dinners.

Alva became a fixture pretty early on; she can cook but hates doing so and would rather be obligated to prepare a few sides or desserts once in a while than to prepare dinner every night. Mogens comes sometimes. He's not a fan of the trek out to Klaus's place, even if Jesper offers to take him. But he's admitted a couple times under the influence of too many second helpings of alcohol that it's nice to have people to eat with. Nice to feel like he has a family again.

And then he'd vomited on the floor and snored himself to sleep on Alva's lap. 

Alva was not too polite to keep him there and had summarily dropped him on the floor, and Margu had brought him a pillow because of course she's the sweetest of sweethearts, and Klaus had snorted at him but brought him a blanket, too. And Jesper had forgotten he was there and tripped over him.

So, well, there was _that _sequence of events. 

The point is, despite all that, or maybe because of that sort of casual closeness, it's...a nice thing. Even with drunk sailors and angry schoolteachers and, and Jesper can't bring himself to say anything bad about Margu because she's an angel. Her family stays around sometimes too, and some of their friends. And it's good. It feels like...see, it doesn't feel like home. Not like home with his dad, anyway, because his dad is great but he was also busy a lot and sometimes it was just Jesper and his expensive food and the expensive table with nobody sitting at it. So it doesn't feel like that. But it feels better, almost. With his friends, and with a good simple meal that's not the best but that he knows Klaus made special because he knows Margu can't deal with spice and Alva feels sick when she sees fish, and because...Jesper asked him. All of that, plus Klaus sitting across the table from Jesper and smiling all soft at him when they make eye contact.

Not home, exactly. But where he belongs all the same. Where he wants to be.

It ends up being the dinners that makes Jesper think thoughts he shouldn't be thinking. Technically the thoughts are about stuff that's probably been there all along, or for a while at least, but the thinking of them happens because of the dinners. Probably. At least he doesn't think he had thought them prior to thinking them when he thought them—

He's confusing himself. 

But—the end bit is that he thinks what if he were here more often, what if he came a bit earlier for dinner—and then he thinks how warm he always feels at dinner, how he tingles right down to his feet when Klaus looks at him—and then he thinks it might be nice if he could feel that way all the time, if he could just stay over in the nights and—then he thinks about breakfast with Klaus in the morning—and then, well, it's 'I wonder what Klaus would look like fresh out of bed' and then it's 'I wonder what he would look like sleeping' and then it's 'I wonder what it would feel like if he held me all night with those wonderful hands of his' and then it was, well. Mostly 'oh shit oh shit'. And a bit of 'oh fuck'. And some 'oh God oh shit oh fuck' for variation.

And then it basically all ended up at the same place, which was Jesper had managed to catch feelings for Klaus without Jesper ever giving himself permission to do so. It is, in his opinion, awfully rude of...himself. Whatever part of it is handling this whole disaster. Klaus was supposed to be his best friend and nothing further, just two business partners with a sparkling personal platonic relationship. Jesper had never even _considered_ the alternative until this point. Which he supposes is kind of how that works, that you don't consider things until you consider them—but anyway! It wasn't supposed to be like this.

It wasn't supposed to be like this because Jesper and Klaus were supposed to be together without anything that could come between them again.

Jesper has already had his moment of drama here. He didn't like it while it was happening. That was supposed to be the end of it. He proves himself. Klaus trusts him. Happily ever after. 

He supposes it's just that he just fucks up happily ever afters like he's done so many other things. 

It feels so much worse when it's not on purpose, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol if y'all have looked back through my fic history to see my track record with unfinished fics then i can understand the worry about leaving this unfinished but y'all also haven't counted on my New Fandom Turbo Boost in which i frequently finish fics within a couple of days or weeks. there's a relatively good chance that will happen here, though if i make an e chapter (which i'm still thinkin over) then that might take me longer...we'll see but! i'm pretty sure i'll get this done! no worries on that front. ...very few worries on that front. :P but like i'm already nearly finished with the third chapter.
> 
> speakin o' which
> 
> you know when i said at the very beginning i refused to let myself make this longer than three chapters
> 
> it's, uh, gonna be at least four, potentially five. god it's like i don't even know myself
> 
> ANYWAY thank you all for reading this so far, really! it was lovely to see the response to just the first chapter, and i really appreciate all of you takin' the time to read and/or kudos and/or comment! i guess the and/or shouldn't really correspond to reading, if you're not reading and just kudosing for example like i appreciate your verve but also like, wassup


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cws for this chapter: negativity, food mention, some insecurity, what essentially amounts to an anxiety attack

"Why do you look like you're heading to the gallows?" Alva asks next to him on the mail-sleigh, with a punch to the arm that lacks her usual force. "It's just dinner. It's just Klaus."

"I'm going to die alone with no friends," Jesper says, which is a bit morbid, but then again she brought the gallows into it first, so.

"Okay," she mumbles. She might be rolling her eyes, but Jesper decides not to look at her to check. His mood is bad enough. "Let me guess, penniless and starving too?"

"I wouldn't be surprised." He slouches back against the seat, sighing gustily. He's the one at the reins, but he can see well enough from here. Sort of.

"Let me ask you, Jesper," she says, steepling her fingers together. "What exactly do you think is going to happen? We walk in there, Klaus offers us some soup. I give him these rolls I made. And...what, then a void opens up beneath you, and you only, and you're sucked down into the pits of the earth?"

"I mean, _maybe,_" Jesper says testily. "Or maybe Klaus picks up that I'm acting weird, same as you did, and he asks what's wrong, and he uses his nice sweet you-can-tell-me-everything voice because that's _always_ his voice, and I spill the beans, and then he hates me forever and I die in an unspecified but definitely tragic and painful manner!"

"Wow."

One thing about Jesper: knowing that he's acting ridiculous has never stopped him from acting ridiculous before, and if that's ever going to change, he's not sure that stage of his development has come quite yet. Almost certainly not today. "I said maybe," he allows.

"Okay," Alva says. "I don't even know where to start unpacking...all of that."

"You can not unpack any of it," Jesper says hopefully.

She raises an eyebrow at him, dry. "No, I'm definitely going to. Let's just start with the biggest thing, I guess. The biggest thing in all of this."

"Your pathological need to help people even when they don't ask for your help?"

"Hush. The thing you seem to be overlooking here is just that Klaus is a kind man."

Jesper pauses. "I'm overlooking that. By having feelings for him. What, you think I'm only into jerks?"

"No, dumbass. If he did find out, and he didn't feel the same way, why would he hate you?"

"Because he's—well. Because." Jesper thinks that through. Alva has a point again, which kind of sucks. "Because because!"

"Have you tried your prowess at debate professionally?" Alva asks, sarcastic. "Look. You and I both know that Klaus would never hurt someone just because they have feelings. Feelings just happen, and they're not something shameful. He wouldn't be mad at you for having feelings any more than he would be mad at you for—I don't know, sneezing on a cold day."

"So...what you're saying is...my feelings are a sneeze."

She casts an icy look at him just as he sees the clearing coming into view. "I know that's not all you got out of that, because I know you're not actually an idiot."

"Can I be not actually an idiot and not actually want you to be right?" He stops the horse, clambering off the sleigh to walk her over to Klaus's stable.

"No," she says with a grin. "If you don't already know I'm right all the time, you're automatically dumb."

She's always been better at verbal sparring. Jesper has only one recourse left: he sticks his tongue out at her.

Klaus opens his door to greet them at just the right time to see Jesper doing so, which is great and not embarrassing, especially because he doesn't try so hard to get his tongue back in his mouth quickly that he chokes on his spit and starts coughing. Except obviously...all of that. All of that happened.

"Are you okay, my friend?" Klaus asks, rushing down the stairs and peering, concerned, at Jesper. Which in turn makes him all fluttery and warm and tingly and weird again, which in turn means he just stares at Klaus like he's terrified and then croaks something out that definitely isn't words.

"He's fine," Alva says loudly with a pointed, unimpressed look at Jesper. 

"I am not," he wheezes. "I'm going to perish. Imminently." 

"What are you, a old cup of milk?" Alva comes up behind him and starts pushing him towards the house. It's immature, but he digs his heels in and makes it as difficult for her as possible. "A cup of milk who forgot how to walk? Maybe you need Klaus's help."

Jesper freezes and looks at Klaus.

He looks—well, amazing, as always, all big and strong and somehow still soft in a way that makes Jesper want to touch him, but also more relevantly he does not look like someone who would not _not_ take Alva up on the offer and _not_ carry Jesper inside.

Which would be fine under different circumstances.

These are, unfortunately, these circumstances, so he sprints off to the door, opening it for both of them with a grandiose gesture like this was his plan the whole time, which it obviously wasn't. Alva knows, also obviously, so she just shoots him a look as she walks inside. Klaus presumably doesn't—or maybe he does, and he's just that nice—and smiles and quietly thanks him as he passes, so big that he brushes against Jesper where he stands. 

Jesper turns briefly into a formless goo and wonders whether he should see about getting new knees, because these don't seem to be holding him up well all of a sudden. It seems to him that should be a function of a good knee. In fact they've been doing that a lot lately, especially when he's here, and oh God it's another one of those things isn't it, one of those things that makes him even less like a normal person around Klaus specifically—

"You're letting the cold in," Alva says. "Unless you'd like to invite it to dinner also?"

He scrambles in. Klaus offers them both soup, and Alva puts the rolls she made down on the table, and no void swallows Jesper up. 

Yet.

It's one of the smaller gatherings today, just them and the soup and rolls and some meatballs with a few sides leftover from the past several dinners. The feeling of it is familiar enough that Jesper is almost able to relax into it. It's like a warm blanket, comfortable and cozy, except if that warm blanket had a patch of it that was inexplicably made of ice. And sometimes he rolls into the ice, and mostly he can avoid it but he still kind of knows it's _there_ and he'd really rather it not be, not when he knows it's weird it's there in the first place.

That's a bad analogy, but the point is there.

The point being that mostly he can talk and laugh with Alva and Klaus like he always does, except every now and then he'll _remember_ and he'll forget how to be the Jesper he was before he knew he was in lo—nope. Nope, he's not going there tonight or ever, not that far. That's the kind of word there's only pain coming back from, if you do at all.

Before he felt things. He'll keep it at that, and only at that.

When he remembers, he starts faltering and fidgeting and spacing out, and then he freaks out because Klaus might realize, and then his heart goes all frozen until Klaus covers up for him, patches over the broken conversation, pats him on the back. Fixes things. Seems like he's always the one who does that, in the end. Fixes Jesper's messes.

God, this is the sort of reason why he can't tell him. Even if, you know, everything. Even if everything were fine and Klaus somehow—even if all that, Jesper isn't even sure if he'd deserve his attention. He's so good. Klaus is good, and Jesper is just. Well. Barely anything really. 

He's stewing in his unhappiness when he realizes all the food is cleared away and the table is empty and Alva and Klaus are both silent. And looking at him.

"Uh...you know how much I love an audience, but I didn't actually prepare any songs for the evening," Jesper jokes weakly. It's doubly a joke because they all know he can't sing. His voice creaks and cracks so terribly it might serve better as a punishment for all parties involved.

"Jesper," Klaus says, and it's gentle like always, but also a bit nervous, which only makes Jesper more nervous.

"Is this an intervention?" Jesper asks, still in the cadence of a joke but shrinking back in his seat all the while.

"Jesper, what's wrong?"

Just one question, and Jesper's throat is already drying up, heart seizing and shuddering in his chest. "I? What? Me? Nothing."

"Then have I done something?" Klaus asks, looking down so his face is all in shadows. He used to look like that a lot. Jesper really had hoped it wouldn't happen again, much less that he'd be the cause of it. "Because it seems like you've been avoiding me, and—if there's anything I've done. Anything I can fix...I'd like to know."

Jesper's eye twitches. He exhales shakily and starts wringing his hands. "No," he says, feeling pathetic and exposed and shame-hot. His next words come out rapidfire in his attempt to reassure Klaus. "Okay, Klaus, no, you could never—seriously, no, I promise, of course not. I know all this might sound like, uh, the lady doth protest too much but—for real, it's just—it's my fault. It's all my fault."

His breathing starts to come faster when Klaus, clearly worried, rests a hand delicately against the bend of his elbow. "Jesper—I'm sure it's fine—"

"You know what?" Jesper snaps back, "It's not! It's not actually fine! I keep saying it's going to be fine and it's _not, _it's going to be _awful_ because I'm _stupid_—"

"You're not," Klaus says, patting his dumb stupid elbow. Almost like...

Fuck. He's the recalcitrant horse now. 

Jesper thinks he might be hyperventilating. He's uncertain how fast one has to be breathing for it to meet the, uh, hyperventilation threshold, but it's fast enough to make his brain go fuzzy, and this is all an overreaction but that's just him, huh, isn't it, because apparently he's just a _baby, _a _baby recalcitrant horse_—

"I _am!_ I'm stupid, I'm the dumbest of the dumb dumbs—I'm a _horse!"_

"I think I must be missing something," says poor, dear Klaus.

"You are," Jesper says, almost hysterical. "But you're supposed to."

"I'm...supposed to not know why you're a horse?"

It turns out, when you're feeling intense emotion and you're confused and lost and exhausted and the man you have feelings for questions your horse status, sometimes you just start laughing out of nowhere. 

So that's what Jesper does: he giggles and sags against the back of his chair and takes deep breaths until his mind just feels like it's full of nothing at all and he says through the roaring in his ears, "No, Klaus. You're supposed to not know that I love you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes yes i know it's an overly dramatic cliffhanger. which, i mean, that's sort of my thing, but also the chapter was already over count and this was the only logical place to cut it
> 
> if you've forgotten, the phrase 'recalcitrant horse' was from chapter 1 when jesper was placating alva. did i just reuse it because i like the word recalcitrant? Maybe.
> 
> i know i've been doing a chapter per day but there miiiiight not be one tomorrow, i technically wrote most of what's here in a long burst separated by a few hours and in doing so fucked up my hands past their usual level of fucked-upped-ness, so i have the start of chapter 4 and all buuuut...my hands feel like shit lol. we'll see, i might be able to manage it. but if not, apologies


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cws for this chapter: some negativity and insecurity, drug mention (as a joke), not really much i can think of other than that but as always please let me know if i've missed something

So there it is. He said it. 

The feelings thing.

The l-word.

Both. Together. All of it, said.

As it also turns out, even when you're hopped up on emotions and exhaustion, once you've said something you really didn't want to say, you can still freak the fuck out, and as it also happens, freaking the fuck out is one of Jesper's specialties. Therefore, after several seconds during which Jesper's words hang in the air and Klaus's mouth hangs open, Jesper stands up abruptly and starts to run as fast as he can towards the door.

"Are you kidding me?" Alva demands incredulously, lunging doorwards, but Klaus stops him first. With just a couple of steps, he's closed the distance between them and put a hand on both of Jesper's shoulders, gentle as ever but still keeping him stationary. 

"I think I'm still missing something," Klaus says, quiet.

"No, uh," Jesper feels some of the hysteria creeping back up his throat. "No, I think that—that about caught you up, actually."

There's a pause. Silence lays heavy on the room, something almost tangible in its weight. Jesper moves forward, slightly. Just a little test, just to see if he could get out from under Klaus's hands. And he knows he could, knows that Klaus would never hurt him, but still his grip tightens infinitesimally, and Jesper...stays.

"You said you loved me," Klaus says, more a question than a statement for all that they definitely all heard Jesper say it. 

Jesper winces, but when he thinks to curl into himself, he feels the steadiness of Klaus's hands and takes at least some small comfort from it. "Yeah. I did...do that."

Another pause, but shorter this time, and when Klaus next speaks, it bears none of his usual certainty, none of the steady sureness that Jesper knows of him. He sounds desperate, almost, like a man afraid he's about to lose something if his next words don't hit their mark. "Then I don't understand. Why are you running away?"

Jesper blinks, eyebrows furrowing. None of this is going how he expected, and it's leaving him off-kilter. "I mean. Like, apart from my crippling emotional incompetence?"

He sees Alva, over by the door still, roll her eyes. Klaus shrugs. This he feels, through Klaus's hands, and he spares a moment to think that this might be the closest Klaus is willing to be to him for some time, if not forever.

"Is there a reason apart from that one?"

"I mean," Jesper says, growing increasingly confused. "There's the obvious one. The one where you don't feel the same and don't know how best to let me down, and—I don't really want to be around for you deciding that you never want to see me again, or the whole 'we can be friends but don't look at my ass', or—you get it. That one."

"You look at my ass?" Klaus asks, and that might be intrigue or it might be amusement or it might be nothing, and Jesper gets tired real easy of not knowing what's up, so he whirls from under Klaus's hands to look up at him, hands on his hips.

"Whether or not you have a nice ass is not the _point,_" Jesper says exasperatedly. "You do, but stop distracting me. I'm still waiting for the rejection part. You can hurry up. I've been bracing myself. I'm braced."

"Clearly," Alva mutters, and he'd turn around to glare daggers at her if he weren't frozen in place with his eyes on Klaus's. 

He looks a little bit like he does when he's holding back a smile. Jesper is immediately suspicious. He hadn't expected laughing from this particular shitshow, and he doesn't think he's braced enough for that. Or for anything. Really not for anything, but the laughter would be especially bad.

Klaus just keeps looking at him, and his eyes are so warm and nice, and it's really throwing off Jesper's groove. "You're doing this wrong," he accuses, waving his hands around at Klaus. "I've imagined hundreds of ways you rejecting me horribly could happen, and none of them involved this much downtime. Not to critique your—your technique, or anything, pal, but—"

"Maybe because I'm not rejecting you," Klaus says, and it's calm enough when he says it that Jesper doesn't even register it as a ridiculous statement until a few moments later.

"What?" Jesper says, and whoever introduced this weird tremor into his voice should be fired from being part of him, really, because it makes him sound stupid and emotional and not very braced at all. "Of course you are. You don't have to protect my feelings. I'll be okay. Rub a little dirt in it. All good."

"Jesper," Klaus says, picking up Jesper's hands from where they're sort of halted indecisively midair, sweeping a thumb comfortingly over his palm. He's not comforted, part because of all of this entirely and part because it just reminds him how much bigger Klaus is, and that's—well—that's not something he needs to think about right now—but it's a good effort. "I'm not rejecting you, because I've been in love with you for a while now."

Jesper balks. 

"Wha?"

That...wasn't in even _one_ of the potential scenarios. He is so fucking unbraced for that being said. He didn't even think—that wasn't an available _option, _it _couldn't_ be when hoping was so likely to lead to heartbreak—

"Why do you think I came to you?" Alva asks, somewhere back in the real world that Jesper is no longer occupying because he's either dead or on some kind of hallucinogen, maybe. "Klaus said—"

"Alva," Klaus says gently, "A moment alone, if you would."

"Ah," she says. "Of course. Sorry." A door slams somewhere back in real-world-land, and the faint sound of a call from outside, "And good luck with him."

Klaus has been looking at him all this time, which is really not helping with, well, anything. 

"So," Jesper croaks, still trying to parse all this in his head. "I technically realize the odds of this being a death dream or a drug trip are low."

Klaus raises his eyebrows. "That's a good start."

Jesper continues, "But, you know, uh, just in case, am I—"

"No. You're here." Klaus smiles, one of those genuine ones that make Jesper feel like he's melting from the top down. "With me."

"And—"

"And you heard me correctly. About me being in love with you."

Jesper nods, dazed. "Hm." He chews on his lip, and finally offers a, "How 'bout that."

"I apologize for leaving you in suspense for so long, but, well. I needed some time of my own to process. I had thought..." He purses his lips. "To be honest, I had thought you might have feelings for Alva."

"Gross," Jesper says, wrinkling his nose.

"She said much the same," Klaus says, chuckling. "But when you asked me to dinner and then—"

"I mean, it felt kind of awkward, is all—"

"And you kept hiding behind her—"

"..._I'm_ just kind of awkward, is all."

"And you stopped coming to see me. We had a conversation a week or so ago, about you and about how I worried about you and missed you, and—well, she figured me out from there. She offered to 'fix' the situation, but promised me she wouldn't disclose any details of our talk."

Jesper recalls Alva running in unprompted, her eye twitching whenever she talked about Klaus's feelings.

Ah.

So the good news is, that's totally a tell and if they ever play poker he could probably win.

The bad news is...well, that his best friend has been meddling in his love life and, worse, that she was right about all of it, and that's kind of obnoxious even if it turned out for the best, and even if admittedly left to his own devices Jesper probably would have spent the rest of his life holed up feeling sorry for himself.

Jesper sighs, deflating. "I'm sorry for avoiding you. When I realized...I hadn't realized, for a long time, what I was feeling meant. I thought I was getting sick."

Klaus starts to laugh, that boisterous ho-ho-ho that never fails to make Jesper's lips curl up into a grin of his own.

"Look! I never...look, okay, my father only ever told me that love was the fulfillment of mankind's greatest ideals and the cause of most of its downfalls, or something like that. Which doesn't map well to physical or emotional sensation. I half thought when I was a kid that when I started dating a war would break out."

"I'll keep an eye out, then," Klaus says with a wink that feels very unfair. "For approaching armies."

"Shut up," Jesper says, halfheartedly hitting Klaus's arm. "My point is just that I was scared. And I'm sorry."

"It's okay now," Klaus reassures, softly smiling. "You're here."

"I'm here," Jesper echoes. And then, thoughtfully, "And you love me?"

"Yes." Klaus definitely looks amused now, but also very fond, and Jesper's knees are doing that thing again, so he figures it's awfully lucky that Klaus is strong enough to hold him up if need be.

Which is something he should also not think about. At present time, in present company.

Even if he could be allowed.

Which...huh. 

"Because I had a list," he adds, partially to distract himself, and partially because contrariness is sort of in his personality, and partially because it is kind of still sitting in the back of his mind yelling _this can't be real, this doesn't make sense, I don't understand_. "About why you couldn't be in love with me. I wrote it down. It's numbered and it has subpoints and everything."

"I'm sure it's a beautifully constructed list," Klaus says. "But the answer is still yes."

"How 'bout that," Jesper repeats, but he's starting to smile this time, and Klaus is too. And Jesper might not understand, still, and there might still be at least a little bit of him that's for the hallucination theory, but Klaus's smile has always had a way of calming him down, of making him think things might work out.

And as crazy as this is, this is no different: Jesper calms down, and thinks, okay. Okay, maybe he means it. Maybe he loves me, and maybe I love him, and maybe that will be all right somehow.

How 'bout that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew so i ended up managing this chapter, my hands weren't too bad last evening so i pushed through. but same warning from last chapter applies here, but doubly so: my hands might fuck me over, and i dooooo tentatively think there will be some smut in the final chapter, and if so, well. it takes me longer to write because it's hard and i hate it. do i think they deserve a smut? yes. am i hitting myself a bit rn? also yes. so. i anticipate it at this moment, but if it takes longer than tomorrow don't give me guff for it, and if there isn't any smut don't give me guff for that either please :P 
> 
> i originally felt this was paced too fast and had like, another 500 words to introduce them talking about shit, and then i got rid of that and shuffled shit all around and--blegh anyway i'm not ultimately satisfied entirely with how the cookie crumbled but also if i'm gonna be fitting shit into 5 1.6k chapters...eh. it will also be discussed more next chapter so hopefully that'll do. we'll see


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note updated chapter count, sigh
> 
> cws for this chapter: insecurity, negativity, some talk about loss and grief

Jesper, growing up, had of course considered what dating someone would be like. He's seen couples out there. He's read a few books. He knows vaguely that couples kiss, and hold hands, and hug. He's observed some individuals courting who walk aimlessly around. Sometimes they give one another presents. Sometimes they do...well, that other activity, on which Jesper's education had been brief and awkward at best, and which he thinks he should probably still not think about with Klaus being so close and all.

But for the most part, Jesper doesn't know what couples _do,_ in between that handful of activities. He doesn't imagine all of those, even all lumped together, could make up an entire lifetime alone. He had actually rather hoped that once he was in a romantic kind of position, all of the information might come flooding into his head. At 8 AM, it's time for you and your partner of choice to compare your life stories so that once an element thereof comes up in conversation with someone else you can laugh knowingly and kiss your partner on the cheek and make some glib remark. At 10 AM, you two lovebirds will row on the lake whilst looking deeply into one another's eyes. At 12 PM, a picnic; at 1 PM, you'll gallivant hand in hand.

But it's starting to truly sink in that Klaus is in love with him—him, as in Jesper, as in himself, as in the person he is, Jesper Johansen at your service—at the same time that Jesper loves him, and that that's presumably supposed to _mean_ something apart from the lightness in his chest and confusion in his head. He's not entirely certain what, though, and he thinks his face might be going blank and stupid while he tries to figure it out. Does he hold Klaus's hands, now? Does he try to kiss him? Does he speak sweet words of devotion, really dig in that hook, or whatever? He doesn't even know how he hooked Klaus in the first place. He's not sure how he's supposed to do it _more,_ or _better,_ or _more couple-ly._

"Something tells me you might be thinking too hard about this," Klaus says, interrupting his contemplation by putting his hands lightly on Jesper's face. Which makes him feel his hands on his face, point one for interruption, but also makes Jesper think about kissing, which is points two through infinity for interruption and subsequent distraction, and he thinks he might be going pink in the face. So he's definitely thinking too hard about _that_ now.

"What? About what?" Jesper asks, in a bit of a daze.

"Us?"

Jesper isn't entirely certain he's not choking right this instant. "Right. Us. There's an us. Not that there wasn't an us before, just like how there's an us with any two-or-more people around, just how grammar works and all—"

"Jesper," Klaus says, amused but also careful. "What's on your mind?"

"Well." Jesper blows his air out through his teeth. "Well, indeed."

Klaus looks endlessly patient, just waiting there for Jesper to say something, waiting for him to be honest. Not going to run away. Not going to change his mind. It's so strange a thought that Jesper still hasn't wrapped his own mind around it entirely, or even very much at all, but he does know that he wants to be...worth that, that kind of trust, that willingness to wait. 

"I don't know what happens now," Jesper starts abruptly. "I don't—I've never—look. If there's some kinda, some kinda guidebook for this sorta thing, I've never seen it, all right? I don't know what changes, now that we've said this. Am I supposed to be kissing you right now? Am I supposed to be doing or saying something that I'm not, well, doing or saying?" He fidgets with his coat sleeve, looking slightly away. "I don't know what to do. And I don't...want to get it wrong. Because you're important. And you've...I'm sorry I'm about to bring this up. You've done this before? You know how things are supposed to work. And I'm already pretty sure I'll fuck things up enough even without you having a head start, because I always fuck things up." He pauses and cringes slowly. "Not—to guilt trip you, for uh, for having been married, or not, you know, being a sheltered young rich kid? Like, the fault's on me, buddy, is what I'm saying, I guess. Or it could be. Probably will be. I'll...stop talking."

"You don't have to," Klaus says. His expression is thoughtful. "If you have more to say."

"No," Jesper ekes out, "I'm good."

"Right. Well. I mean, does it help any if I say you're off to a good start?"

"By monologuing about my lack of experience?"

"By being clear and vocal about your reservations and needs," Klaus corrects. "A big part of being in a relationship is—"

"Monologuing."

Klaus flashes him an exasperated look, but there's the curve of a smile in the corners of his lips, so he doesn't mean it entirely. "I _will_ monologue if you don't let me talk."

"So...a monologue," Jesper says in an exaggerated whisper, winking when Klaus's lips twitch. Maybe all of this might be easier if he didn't default to joking when he was nervous. But then again, maybe not. Maybe it would be harder. He's not going to risk it.

"You're a menace," Klaus says, "But it's part of what I love about you."

Jesper promptly shuts up, re-reddening at an astonishing rate, and Klaus laughs. Which means it was on purpose, damn him, but also he deserved it, and also he's not going to complain about Klaus telling him he loves him again.

"To get back to what I was saying, communicating is an important part of being in a relationship. If you ever want or need something, or you're worried or feeling uncertain—anything at all, you should ask. Same on my end. Does no good to stew on what bothers you. My mother used to say, uh..." He scratches at his head as he recalls. "Troubles make for a terrible stew, but they taste better on the tongue."

Jesper hadn't known his mother, but it sounds like the sort of thing one would say, he imagines. Klaus's eyes are far away, and Jesper rests his hand hesitantly on his forearm. Comfort is another thing he never really learned, though he's getting better. But some old hurts never fully heal, and Klaus has more of them than Jesper always knows how to help with. Another reason why he's not—

Klaus startles, and gives Jesper a look so fond that Jesper's thoughts on the matter derail suddenly.

"Sorry. I'm all right. And we're all right. There aren't any rules you're missing, there's not anything you're doing wrong. This is just...something we build together. Entirely our own. I have done this before, sure, but not with you. You and I get to decide what we want to have happen here, all right? Whether we kiss today or tomorrow or a year from now—"

"No thank you," Jesper interrupts, disturbed by the very thought.

Klaus grins. "Noted. That's just what I mean. Whatever happens, it's a choice, and we decide it as a team. That's all."

It makes sense, though it also sounds sort of like something he might know because...well, he's done it before. Same as Jesper said. But in fairness, Jesper thinks this might've been something Klaus had to work out for himself, earlier. He imagines him freaking out like Jesper just did, and the woman who would become his wife calming him down like Klaus just did. He imagines losing Klaus, and having nobody on his team anymore, nobody to calm him down, nobody left to help guide the path forward.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs without thinking about it too hard. "I'm sorry you lost her."

Klaus stares at him steadily, and Jesper inhales sharply. "Oh. Sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"No, it's going to come up. It's not something you should be scared to talk about with me." Klaus looks behind him for a chair and sits down, thoughtful. "I'm sorry too. But the more time that's passed, and...the more I try to honor her memory." He pauses. "The less it feels like I lost her, and the more it feels like she found a path to somewhere else. And I can't follow her yet, but it doesn't mean she's gone." He smiles ruefully after a moment. "That probably doesn't make much sense."

Jesper pulls a chair out to face Klaus and sits, placing his hand on Klaus's knee. "I don't know if I can say I get it, sure. I haven't lost anybody I was close to." He never knew his mother. He never really got close to anybody else, not before this. Even his dad...he loved him, and he knew his dad loved him too, but he thinks the closest they've ever been was the day Jesper said he wanted to stay here. 

He should write a letter to him, he thinks idly, and it feels right.

But also not on topic, so he shakes his head rapidly. "But, uh, that doesn't mean I don't kinda...know where you're going with it, a little?" He shrugs. "And whatever it is you mean, it's important to you, and _you_ get it. So that's the thing that matters."

"Yeah," Klaus breathes. A tendril of cold makes its way in past the closed door, and Jesper shivers. Klaus just closes his eyes, smiles soft as anything, and says, "I think she likes you. Wherever she is."

"Oh," Jesper says, startled by the declaration, and touched. He doesn't really have any idea what to do with it, though, and that crippling emotional incompetence is still out there being...a thing, so he just says, "Uh, cool. Thanks? Wow, it's, uh. A bit cold, isn't it."

"A bit," Klaus acknowledges. "I can get you a blanket."

Jesper watches as Klaus gets up, heads over to the part of the house that Jesper knows contains his bed, and comes back with a blanket.

"Did you take the blanket off your bed?" Jesper asks, suspicious and a little bit irked that he's thinking about Klaus's bed now, and a little bit tingly thinking about Klaus's bed, which he's _not supposed to be thinking about thank you ever so much, let's actually try to keep to that for like even a little bit, God._

"I don't have another one," Klaus says simply, holding out the blanket.

"What? That's ridiculous, it gets so cold here. You need another blanket," Jesper frets, doing his best not thinking about Klaus's bed and how the blanket is on Klaus when Klaus is in Klaus's bed and sleeping and maybe even—okay, finally conceded, he's so shitty at this not thinking thing, he's awful at it, why does he even bother.

"I'm used to the cold. I don't mind it. The blanket?" He pushes it forward again, eyebrows raising.

"The blanket should be at least two blankets, just—just on principle, okay! Like, one to have, one to lend—or, uh, like—look, you should just—I'll get you one. I like two blankets anyway. So I—"

"Ah," Klaus says, voice going low in a very unfair way, smile spreading slow. "So what you're saying is I should have more blankets for when you stay over, is that it?"

Jesper looks wide-eyed up at him, betrayed by Klaus having the audacity to say it out loud, even if it's true. "What! No! I wasn't thinking of being in your bed. Or, for that matter, any other bed-related matters."

"Your cheeks are red," Klaus points out mildly.

Jesper snatches the blanket from him and wraps himself up until only a small portion of his face is visible. "No they're not. You can't prove it. And anyway, it's cold."

"Mmhm." He's barely even humoring him with that tone, and Jesper briefly considers being irritated, except for Klaus steps closer, standing directly over Jesper's chair and also having the audacity to still be very big and broad and delicious. "So. Now I think of it. If you don't like the idea of a kiss happening in a year, when would you prefer?"

Jesper chokes and scrunches the blanket further around himself. "Uh."

"A few months? A week."

"Who knows," Jesper mumbles, with a fake shrug that is mostly obscured by the blanket anyway.

"Tomorrow? Today?"

Jesper technically knows he's getting even redder, but it's not like he can _do_ anything about it. "I'm not averse," he says, with all of the confidence he can muster at the moment, which isn't much because he's having a cardiac arrest or something. Klaus is bending over, closer to his face. This is not unrelated to the cardiac arrest.

"Now?"

It is so pathetic how short of breath he is from the thought of just one kiss, even if it is a kiss with a beautiful giant of a man who he's in love with, and all that.

"That works for me," he whispers, letting the blanket drop from his hands. They have a much more important job to do, reaching up to Klaus's face and pulling him down the last few inches. And he figures then he might as well make up for Klaus having to travel all that distance—do his part in all this—so he closes the gap completely. 

He presses his lips against Klaus's.

"So when would you like to schedule the second one," Klaus murmurs against Jesper's lips, "Because a year from now is still an option—"

"It is _not_," Jesper says, "And also shut up," and kisses him again.

Which does end up making him forget entirely about the cold, so there's that, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god fucking damn it. it's gonna be six chapters. i am a PARODY OF MYSELF!!!!
> 
> i made up klaus's mama's proverb. it makes sense in my brain and probably not outside of it. i don't give a shit, she still said it, and good on her!!!,,,,,
> 
> the next chapter should be the smut. fuckin knock on wood, i guess! maybe next chapter ends up a discussion about the nature of the soul or more blanket comedy! jesus who even knows anymore, i'm a grab bag of absolutely nothing. also i have no idea what this chapter is, tbh. i just kinda kept writing in chunks bc my hands were giving me shit, and i kinda hoped all throughout that it would make sense at the end of it. do i know if it makes sense? nope! just gonna send it out in the world and turn my back, my fine fellows


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapter count changed again. imagine that. >:(
> 
> cws for this chapter include: this is where this story starts to earn its e rating, though this one is probably at most an m? also, insecurity about personal attractiveness and about lack of experience; talk about consent, brief talk about age difference, i believe that's it but as always if i've blundered somewhere let me know

It's not as though Jesper has any basis of comparison, being as he's never kissed anybody or interrogated anybody about kissing before, but it occurs to him that maybe this is why couples kiss so often: this feeling of calm, of confidence, of knowing that the person opposite you will hear you and respond. When Jesper angles his face wrong, or bumps into Klaus weirdly, Klaus just smiles and fixes it with a guiding thumb, and from this Jesper learns how they're supposed to move together. And he feels safe in it, like Klaus won't start laughing because they clack teeth or Jesper's nose bends awkwardly to the side and feels strange and gross and he needs to pull apart a moment to make it not do that anymore. So...that safety. That's his hypothesis. Why wouldn't people like that? Why wouldn't people yearn for that kind of closeness? It makes sense.

But then Klaus shifts, and stands a little straighter, and brings Jesper with him so that he's standing on his toes without any of his weight resting on them—a casual, mindless display of strength that he's probably not even thinking about—and Jesper gasps on reflex, and Klaus's tongue slips briefly into his mouth. Just for a moment, and it seems like it's a reflex also, but it sets off a cascade. Klaus stiffens, and sets Jesper down and backs away. Jesper's mouth remains hanging open in surprise and a hint of arousal, and he thinks, _oh. Never mind. Apparently this is what the kissing is for. I'm fine with that. I'm very fine with that._

But Klaus doesn't come back, just stays staring at him. "You stopped," Jesper says obviously.

"You didn't tell me I could—" Klaus's ears tip with pink. Jesper is vaguely delighted to know this is possible. "Look, this all just...happened. Today. We shouldn't rush things."

Jesper pauses, then crosses his arms. "Is that you saying that?"

"Is someone else here?"

"No, is that—is that what you want. To not rush things. Is that you, or is that just what you think you should say." 

Klaus shifts uncomfortably, which more or less confirms Jesper's suspicion even before he says, "It's not that I don't—with you, I mean—Jesper. This is...your..."

"First time?" Jesper asks, a hint of a scowl on his face. "With everything. You can say it. It's true. I don't have experience. With the kissing, or with—with, uh—" God, it does not help his case that he can't even say it. "With the...stuff that comes after." 

"Oh my God," Klaus mumbles, starting to look concerned. "Do you _know _what comes after? Do you...not..."

"Klaus, I know what sex is," Jesper snaps. "Just because I don't have a full...catalogue...of the, you know, exact minutiae of the individual acts—"

Klaus drags one of his big hands over his face, which is doubly unfortunate, because it means he's doubting Jesper and also because that hand is very big and very used to be on Jesper and now it very isn't, which is very very irritating.

"Stop right there."

Klaus peers at him through his fingers, looking suddenly rather tired. "How do you mean?"

"You're thinking."

"Constantly."

"You're thinking," Jesper presses on, "About how I don't know about sex so that means we can't have sex right now, and then you'd start to think I don't know about sex because I'm young, younger than you, and then you start to think about how there are all these reasons this can't work. Shouldn't. Maybe you should step back. Maybe you should let me down gently, and stay here feeling—guilty and—I don't know, all self-sacrificial and, and looming in the darkness, and shit."

Klaus lets his hands drop, and views Jesper steadily. "Looming," he repeats.

"You loom sometimes," Jesper insists, a bit waspishly. "Look. Maybe now you're going to say you weren't thinking any of that. And you just wanted us to slow down for now. Court properly."

"Kind of you to take the trouble of saying anything from me," Klaus says. He sounds mostly amused again, so Jesper will take it as a win.

"Yes, it is," Jesper says archly. "But to go back to my point, first off, that's what I thought you were thinking, and it makes me—it feels like—basically, I don't like it. So I'll just say straight off that all of that is wrong, and I'm old enough to know what I want, and I want you, looming and all."

His face softens. Another win, and a better one.

"And I also want sex," Jesper adds to his winning streak. "From you specifically. Whenever you're comfortable with it, but now sounds good to me at least."

"Jesper."

"And for the second point, my father never taught me how to court anyway," Jesper says, raising his nose defiantly in the air. This is not exactly accurate. He might have tried, or someone might have tried, but Jesper had examined his nails so deeply that he doesn't remember any of it except for someone mentioning flowers at some point, which could mean anything really. "So that means the rules don't apply and you should fuck me now." He remembers some of his manners last minute, and says, "If you want."

Is this a situation where a 'please' would apply? Jesper is not very well-versed in 'please' etiquette. His many tutors had never gone over whether to use it when requesting sex, at any rate.

Jesper isn't sure where this goes, next. All of this is uncharted territory for him, and he can usually read Klaus fairly well, but he's not sure if that exasperated look on his face means Jesper is about to be told firmly to go home for the day or whether it...somehow leads into the sex thing? Or neither, maybe.

"You know," Klaus says, finally. "I suppose it was silly of me."

Jesper's eye twitches as he tries to chase away the thoughts that finish the sentence _to kiss you, to think I loved you in the first place._

"You're kind of like...a force of nature. When you've decided on something, everything kneels before you."

He doesn't know what any of this has to do with anything. Avalanches, earthquakes, forces of nature that come to mind—they're not good things. But maybe this is poetic somehow? Like, uh, you're so sexy when you...destroy towns all over.

No, he's still missing the point, for sure.

"Silly of me to think I could ever be any different," Klaus continues, stepping forward and placing those wonderful hands on his hips, "Especially when I want you so much anyway."

Jesper feels a little bit faint about the hands, and also about how Klaus's low rumble suffuses through his body like this. He thinks for a moment he can almost feel the poetry. Sexy earthquakes.

No. Definitely still missing the point. Scrap that entire point.

"What?" Jesper summarizes intelligently.

Klaus sighs. "You are...part right. You're new to this, and these are things I've worried about all along when I thought about it. About you being new, about...I didn't know if I could..." Klaus's brows furrow. "I want to get it right. With you. And I don't want to go too fast for you and scare you off. I don't want you to be scared by how much I've...thought...how much I've wanted."

This does not sound scary to Jesper. It sounds like something that would make him inhale sharply and keep the breath inside so he doesn't make some sound, so his head grows fuzzy before he can envision what Klaus thinking and _wanting_ might look like. Might translate to, here. Now? Please now. See, he can use his pleases.

"But here I am, talking about communication and then messing it up right away." He pauses, then smiles wryly. "Not that you let me get much of a word in edgewise."

"You're welcome," Jesper says, feeling a bit lightheaded, partly because of the thing he just did with holding his breath.

"Mm." Klaus's hands tighten around Jesper's waist. He feels engulfed, in a good way, and in a way that still makes it hard to find air as he stares at Klaus with wide eyes. "So let's communicate. If I make love to you—"

"Yes," Jesper interrupts. "Please. Now." 

Klaus's smile widens, eyebrows raising.

Jesper wrinkles his nose, and begrudgingly has manners. "If you want."

"Oh," Klaus says. "I do."

Jesper has barely even a second to feel lightheaded about that deep rumble again before Klaus shifts his hands slightly to give him purchase on Jesper's ass and lifts him, but this time higher, so he's looking slightly down at Klaus. He doesn't look like Jesper's weight is affecting him at all, except for his eyes are terribly dark, and Jesper gulps at seeing them. A tingling, electric heat is starting to coil again down in his abdomen, and it only stokes the flame knowing that this time he can _act_ on it. He can kiss Klaus, and Klaus will kiss him back.

"Well?" Klaus asks, still smiling, almost wider still like having Jesper here actually makes him happy. Which—it might, now Jesper thinks of it, which is wild.

Jesper dips down and kisses Klaus, and this time he's learned or maybe it's just the luck of the draw, because it's immediately good. They push and pull against one another like twin waves, and whenever they part for a moment the sound of it is slick and wonderful enough that Jesper dives right back in. It's not long until Klaus swipes against Jesper's lips with his tongue, and Jesper hesitantly opens for him like he did before, and this time Klaus licks into his mouth with confidence. Which is kind of weird, yes, but also Jesper isn't thinking about that so much as he is lost in sensation, in Klaus being so close and so warm and in how he wants to be closer, how he wants to find someplace for all this energy inside him to go.

"Klaus," he gasps, and his hips jerk involuntarily forward against Klaus's chest, causing him to make one of those embarrassing noises. Klaus's hands flex—he's not sure if that one was involuntary, but given how Klaus bites Jesper's lips at the same time, a bit rough, maybe not much—and squeeze the globes of his ass, press him forward again in a slow grind. Jesper's head falls back at the surge of pleasure, and he pants for air. "Klaus, what do we—I want—"****

"You can have it," Klaus says, low and rough and beautiful. "Anything."

Technically he'd been trying to ask for instructions, but it's sweet enough that Jesper's heart constricts and he forgets what he was going to ask for a moment anyway. "Oh," he manages instead. "Thank you?"

Klaus chuckles breathlessly, and kisses him again.

When they come up for air, it's really only because Klaus seems to have spotted some point on Jesper's neck he'd like to lavish attention on, and then Jesper loses all his air again because all he can do is breathe through his nose if he doesn't want to whimper.

"Open your mouth," Klaus murmurs. "I want to hear the song you sing."

Which is sweet, but also very cheesy, and, "No you don't," Jesper says, arching his back as Klaus nips carefully at the place his neck and shoulder meet. "I'm a terrible singer and we all know that."

Klaus stops a moment, then huffs. "Metaphorically."

"You might want to avoid the sex metaphors right now," Jesper recommends, head all afloat. "I'm not sure I have the brainpower to sort through it."

Klaus chuckles again, but this time his normal warm slightly-less-sexy one. "Sex metaphors. I see." He kisses Jesper again, perfunctory, smiling. "I want to hear you. All right?"

"It's embarrassing. I sound like...a..." He's not sure what he sounds like. "Like an embarrassing thing."

"Please?"

His etiquette teachers had also never taught him about the sheer power of a please delivered from a beautiful man pressing his lips to your collarbone, looking up at you through hooded eyes, but he probably wouldn't have believed them anyway. Plus it would've been weird, contextually, but the point is: he's not sure he could say anything against Klaus when he's looking at him like that and asking him to say yes. "Yeah," he says dazedly. "Yeah, sure."

"Good," Klaus says. "Otherwise maybe I would've just had to try harder."

"I'd say that's lazy of you to ask, then," Jesper says, because Klaus may have kissed the brain part out of him, but he'll stop snarking only when he dies. "Except for I think if you tried harder I might faint or something."

"Oh?" Klaus grins. "Was that a challenge of some kind?"

"No." Jesper narrows his eyes suspiciously. "It was an honest declaration of potential fainting."

"Sounded like it could've been a challenge."

"Sounds like you're ignoring me on purpose."

"Sounds like maybe I need to take you to my bed so I can try harder."

That shuts Jesper up immediately, the flush returning with a vengeance to his cheeks. "Uh," he tries valiantly. "I...um..."

"That's a yes. If you want?"

Maybe that's him trying to be courteous, or maybe clever, but Jesper isn't going to risk misunderstanding either way. He snorts, says, "Don't be dumb," and points imperiously towards the direction of Klaus's bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god damn it god damn it
> 
> i'd say someday i'll learn to shut up but let's be real here at this point that's just a straight out lie. i will be verbose until the day i lie in the grave and even then my epitaph will take up 3 tombstones. no 5. no 6. no 7. DO YOU SEE WHERE IM GOING WITH THIS. 
> 
> anyway yes this chapter was at 3.5k so i gave up and split it so hopefully the sex will happen next chapter! who knows! they're in the bedroom but lord knows they're still TALKING
> 
> i'm prob making klaus a bit too sexy in this even tho he's the one with prior experience but shh it's ok. he can be a sexy boy if he wants. (if i want) (shhhh)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cws for this chapter: there's sex in this one and a lot of sex/inexperience-related insecurity, some briefly mentioned body insecurity, i think that's the gist of it but as always let me know if i've missed something

It's not that there isn't still the same charged atmosphere between them as Klaus carries him there, but Jesper can feel an undercurrent to it too, in the way Klaus's hands cradle him, in the way his steps are almost ginger moving forward, in the steady-sweet gaze of his eyes. He feels...precious.

Jesper was rich for most of his life, more valuable in money and goods than most the people he was surrounded by, but he's never felt precious like this before. He trails a wondering hand along the planes of Klaus's face when they stop at his door, and Klaus closes his eyes, leans into it. "What?" he asks.

"I'm allowed to say I love you now, right?"

The smile Klaus wears has an element of relief, of unbearable softness, and he shifts his face over to kiss the base of Jesper's palm. "By all means."

"Well. I just...I do."

"And I'm allowed to say I love you too."

"Good." Jesper exhales. "Yes. Good."

"And to show it." He opens his door with one hand, the other supporting all of Jesper's weight without any visible strain, and Jesper bites back his whimper before he remembers he agreed not to do that. "So I'll do that."

"Also good," Jesper says, voice high-pitched.

"I certainly hope it will be." Klaus's eyebrows waggle obnoxiously, which is the only reason Jesper doesn't make an even more awkward noise.

"You're doing this on purpose," Jesper accuses, Klaus walking them over to his bed and setting him down so gently he could cry about it. "Being all sexy. And—the one-liners."

"Yes," Klaus acknowledges amusedly. "Sometimes when I'm having sex I try to be sexy, you see."

Jesper doesn't like the word 'pouting', but it's probably the most accurate word. "Well. Glad you have fun doing that, I guess. I'd do it if I knew how. But, well. Here we are. So you can just sex it up over there alone. Mr. Sexy." It is unlikely that this lands as an insult, not that he actually wanted it to be.

Klaus stops where he is, giving him an odd look, then says, "You realize you don't need to _try_ to be attractive to me, right?"

Jesper sniffs derisively.

"I'm serious. Right now, you're—the way you go pink, how responsive you are. Your little noises." Jesper is still doing his best to look unconvinced, part because he is and part because Klaus complimenting him is rather nice, but he doesn't expect it when Klaus takes his hand by the wrist and presses it lightly between his legs.

Jesper's eyes grow wide.

Klaus's tunic is so long and generally oversized that it hides his groin. Not that Jesper would have tried to look anyway, probably. So he wouldn't have known, though he may have suspected in his more uncouth moments alone, that he's—he's so—well-endowed. Gigantic, really. His mouth starts watering, and he licks his lips before stating the other obvious point.

"You're hard."

"Of course. I have been since we started kissing."

"Really?" Jesper asks disbelievingly.

"You really don't know," Klaus says, part musing, part wondering. "I suppose you wouldn't. I never wanted you to. But...this isn't the first time you've made me like this. Sometimes I'd...it was wrong, or I thought it was, but I'd think about you. In here. With me."

"Oh," Jesper breathes, the pink traveling from his cheeks downwards. It's starting to feel hot in here again. He plucks anxiously at his collar. "Doing what?"

Klaus shoots him a look. "Jesper."

"No, I mean—I still don't know—" Damn his uniform for being so...constructed. He'd have to go for the belt to deal with the collar. "What do I do? So I can make you...feel..."

Klaus's eyes go molten, and he starts to unlace the sash at his waist, slow and purposeful. "Well. We could both start by removing some clothes."

Jesper swallows. At least, as embarrassing as that feels, it dovetails with the whole feeling hot thing. After a moment, he undoes his belt buckle, focusing on the shine of it to keep his hands from shaking. His coat goes after, leaving him in his suspenders and loose shirt, but he's not sure how far Klaus wants him to go, here. He looks up to see Klaus watching him intently. The sash is undone, but other than that he's still entirely clothed.

"Hey," Jesper protests, but Klaus just reaches out a finger to slide under one of the suspenders.

"I've always loved seeing you like this," he says, quiet but intense. "So dressed down, I mean. It makes me feel like I'm the only one who gets to see you this open."

Jesper blinks up at him. "You are." Thinking it over, he adds, "Emotionally. Other people have seen me in my suspenders. Some people have even seen me entirely naked. My nannies...actually the entire household once, don't ever ask my father about that day, he was holding a brunch...oh, and—"

Klaus interrupts, "Mind if I get to be one of that lucky group, then?" In one swift move, Klaus takes off his shirt, dumping it on the ground. "We can make it a bit more equal."

Jesper forgets entirely how to speak at that instant.

Klaus is...big. Which he's said a million times already and thought even more, but it's true, and so much so here: he seems to take up even more of the room without his tunic on, all big muscles from years of labor and big belly from years of appreciating his food. There's a dusting of silver hair down between his nipples (and oh, God, don't even let Jesper get sidetracked on that now, he'll be out of commission all day) and a trail that starts up again down his belly leading to—

"Jesper?"

"Shh," he says. "I'm staring."

"Okay," Klaus says, amused again.

"Don't laugh at me. You don't get to laugh at me. You'd be staring if you were me. Or anybody else."

"You can touch, too, if you want," Klaus offers, still sounding a little bit like he's considering laughing, rudely.

"I need to finish processing." He gestures at Klaus wildly. "Why do you ever wear a shirt?"

"The cold, mostly."

Jesper wrinkles his nose. "Be cold, then. No more shirts."

Klaus does laugh, now. "None at all?"

"No."

"What will the children think?"

"That Mr. Klaus is so magical he doesn't need to wear a shirt."

"Ah." He won't stop grinning. "I'll keep that under consideration. How about you, do you need shirts?"

"I'm not anything to look at, so yes," Jesper says decisively. "Plus, my skin is so pale it would reflect off the snow and blind all the townsfolk."

"I see. That would be unfortunate indeed. No snow in here, though." Klaus runs a finger along one of the straps of his suspenders again, and Jesper shivers. "Maybe we can manage it."

Jesper sighs. He supposes ultimately being naked is probably the end goal, so despite his reservations about his body, he's going to need to get to this at some point. So. Right. 

He undoes his suspenders where they hook into his pants at the front, and because these pants have always been just a bit too big for him—a dig, he thinks, from the postal academy's tailor—they pool at his feet almost immediately. Embarrassing. His knees are knobby, red from the cold constantly, and the hair on his legs is all a delicate, almost invisible blonde. Not manly at all. But he takes his shirt off anyway, because fair is fair, even though fair means he's cold again, and that he's left rather unceremoniously in his underpants.

"All right. There we go. There's that done," Jesper mumbles. "So what next? Your pants, I suppose?"

"Shh," Klaus says. "I'm staring."

Jesper thinks he's teasing, just throwing back his own lines, until he sees how Klaus's eyes have glazed over, how his lips are parted. "Oh," Jesper says, surprised. "Huh. You mean it."

"If you are allowed your staring, I am allowed mine," Klaus says. "And in any case, I'm just an old man. You're..." His tongue comes out to wet his lips, and he shakes his head. "Beautiful. You really are."

Jesper scrunches up his face, ready to argue on both points, and Klaus crosses to press a finger to his lips. "Jesper," he says quietly. "I mean it. I believe it. You're like a dream."

They stare at each other, and Jesper is the first to break away with a huff, turning his face and scratching at his chin. "I...okay." Thinking about this, thinking about the sincerity in Klaus's eyes, opens up some raw, roaring feeling in his chest that he's not ready to confront just yet. "You should still take off your pants though."

"Yes sir." Klaus throws him a wink, which leaves Jesper incapacitated for the next few moments, and does as ordered. Which leaves Jesper incapacitated for a lot longer than a few moments, because in only his undergarments, it's a lot easier to see how Klaus's dick strains against the fabric, and the sheer _size_ of it, and how it's left a damp spot where he...where he's most likely...

"You should take those off too," Jesper says, eyes still fixed. 

"Is that so?"

"Yes." He's teasing again, but Jesper will let it pass, maybe partially because he's very distracted right now. 

"Is this where you tell me I should never wear pants either?"

"No," Jesper says, finally looking up. "This is mine."

Klaus takes a deep breath. Lets it out. "I'm trying not to make this happen too fast, sweetheart," he rumbles, and Jesper stiffens in surprise both at the pet name and at his tone, which is absolutely _filthy,_ all darkness and promises. "But you're making it very difficult."

"So stop trying," Jesper says. Almost a whisper, because he's not sure he knows exactly what he's asking for, but he knows Klaus wouldn't hurt him. Just because he's Klaus, and just because he looks at him like he's a treasure, and both of those are far more than enough. Far more than he thought he'd get, ever. 

Klaus looks at him carefully, evaluating his expression maybe, then says, "Tell me to stop if you need to."

"You're the one who said I'm a force of nature," Jesper says with a shrug, and he's about to add something about town destruction or people murdering because that's still mostly what he got out of the phrase but then Klaus is kissing him again, which is probably for the best. The pace is different, now, and Jesper loses himself in it quickly, enough so that he barely realizes it when Klaus reaches down to divest him of his underclothes, but _certainly_ not enough so that he doesn't realize when Klaus brushes against his arousal, not enough that he doesn't feel it down to his toes when he shouts out and bucks forward and finds nothing but skin awaiting him.

"Klaus," he gasps, and Klaus kisses him again dirty and rough, and he wants to see Klaus's—well, everything—but not enough to break away, so he reaches out for something to anchor himself and finds Klaus's waist, the small of his back, the swell of his ass. Klaus makes a noise in the back of his throat and uses one hand to Jesper's back to keep him stationary as he thrusts, and even though he's bent forward to reach Jesper's mouth, he's still so tall that Jesper can feel the slide of something wet just under his ribs. Jesper whimpers when he realizes that's probably from Klaus's dick, and presses himself against Klaus as close as he can manage.

"God, Klaus," he pants when they break apart, "You're so—you're so _big_—" He scrabbles between them, trying to find Klaus's groin, and nearly melts when he gets a hand on him. "Oh my God," he moans. "Oh my _God."_

If Klaus is surprised by his eagerness, he doesn't let on, perhaps because he seems just as eager when he groans and picks Jesper up, then walks backwards to his oversized bed and lies down on it, taking Jesper with him. Jesper is laid somewhat awkwardly on his chest now, but he scrambles so that he's straddling him, just over Klaus's broad chest and looking down, mesmerized.

Klaus gazes up with a sweet smile even though his blue eyes are dark and speak volumes as to how worked up he is. Jesper would be offended if he weren't, but he doesn't mind this little reprieve either. "Hey," he says, a matching smile finding its way onto his face.

"Hello." Klaus smooths a hand over his back. Jesper relaxes into the touch, closing his eyes briefly.

"Fancy seeing you here," he murmurs when his eyes open back up.

Klaus snorts. "I suppose you would know," he says. "About what's fancy."

"World authority," Jesper says dryly, casting his eyes downward. "Speaking of fancy."

He doesn't know, of course, if this is accepted bedroom etiquette or if it's just kind of weird, but he's been thinking about this since he saw Klaus take off his shirt and Klaus is being rude anyway, so he ducks his head and thoughtfully kisses one of Klaus's nipples, then after a quick peek to make sure Klaus isn't, like, about to push him off or something, licks at it. His other hand plays idly with Klaus's chest hair, combing through it, so he can feel when Klaus takes a breath and holds it there until Jesper finishes the whole event off with another quick kiss, right where the skin starts to pebble and go dark.

Klaus opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. "I'm not complaining," he says roughly. "But what about that was fancy, exactly?"

Jesper scowls. "I needed a segue!"

"You picked that one?"

"Clearly I did."

When Klaus huffs out a ghost of a chuckle, it sends Jesper upwards a moment, just enough to remind him where he is. How close he is. It's almost enough to make him smile again, if it weren't for Klaus still teasing him. "Okay, fair enough. And why did you stop?"

"Because you still haven't given me any instructions," Jesper says, bristling slightly, "So maybe it was weird and it was like—the equivalent of—oh, I don't know. Sucking on your toes."

"I've heard some people enjoy that," Klaus says mildly. "But you're right." In a single move, one Jesper barely registers, Klaus flips them over so that Jesper is lying on the bed and he's over him, caging him in. _Looming._ But attractively so, whereas the thing he does sometimes in the dark isn't really, more in the realm of a neutral-to-kind-of-odd, and Jesper is getting sidetracked again. Klaus's face is shadowed, emphasizing the stark lines of his brow; his beard is falling softly onto Jesper's belly, brushing against it when he moves like a whisper of air. "I really should teach you."

"Uhhh," Jesper says, suddenly a bit nervous without knowing entirely why.

Klaus smiles again, and it's still his calm, soft smile, but in this context it feels ominous somehow. His mouth descends to Jesper's chest and delivers a light kiss on the right nipple, just like Jesper had done, but then after a few more kisses, he licks slowly over it before taking it into his mouth and sucking.

Jesper has a few moments to feel pride in knowing that Klaus also makes embarrassing noises before he realizes, oh no, that's still him, he's the one making noises and thrusting his chest up into Klaus's mouth and overall being a wanton disaster.

Klaus lets off with a wet noise and says, "Good to know," and then gives Jesper barely any reprieve before almost absentmindedly tugging at his other nipple until Jesper is thrashing his head back and forth, electric currents lazily flowing through his veins until they make their way to curl in his abdomen where a familiar feeling is starting to build.

"I thought I asked how to make you feel good," Jesper says out of a sense of rebellion, and also because he does actually want to know. "I was thinking, like—verbal—or like a written list, maybe—"

Klaus muffles his laughter into a kiss on Jesper's sternum, then a bit further down to his belly button. 

"Stop laughing at me!"

"I'm not laughing at you," he says, then amends when Jesper shoots him a fierce look, "Not exactly. You're just cute."

"I would like to be less cute," Jesper says with as much dignity as he can manage, which isn't much at the moment, "And more _sexy. _Like you. That is _not _a compliment right now."

He's laughing again, even if he's trying to hide it by kissing Jesper's neck and being very sexy about it, damn him.

"Klaus! Come on! Maybe you think this is funny because you have alllll the answers here, but I feel like—" Like he's small, and not in a good way. Like he'll fuck this up too. "I feel like I don't have any of them. You said you wanted to get it right, yeah? Can you...just...let me get it right too?"

God, this emotional vulnerability thing sucks sometimes.

Klaus stops short, and stops laughing, and sits up. Jesper sits up too, so they're facing each other. And he's _not_ going to steal glances at Klaus's dick, either, because this is serious.

He is lying about that. It's right there, and it's gigantic and red and beautiful and he wants to touch it. Feel the heft of it in his hand.

But yes. Serious.

"I'm sorry," Klaus says. "You're right. I really don't—I promise I mean it when I say you don't have to try, or to do anything special, to be sexy in my eyes. I think that you're cute, and beautiful, and very sexy, and I'm still having to control myself so I don't go too far when I hear you, or when I see you under me, or on top of me, or...I know you said I didn't have to control myself. But I want this to be a good time for you. Not even just because it's your first. It's your first with me, and that's...important. To me."

"Okay," Jesper says slowly. "I guess that makes sense."

"As for instructions, I don't know that I can really give them like you're thinking. There's not really a list, and..." Klaus clears his throat. "This is my first time with a man. So. I know some things from hearing whispers as a teenager, but probably not all that much more than you."

Jesper blinks, tilting his head as he thinks through this, then asks, "Why didn't you just say that?"

"A few reasons. I wanted to be the man you wanted, maybe. And I didn't want you to feel even more nervous."

Jesper scoots closer, raising a hand to Klaus's face, and says, "It actually is kind of a relief. That there are some things we can figure out together, I mean."

Klaus kisses his thumb where it rests over his lips and sighs. "And that's a relief to me in turn."

They both sit there a moment before Jesper says, "We keep pausing the sex, don't we."

"We do." Klaus grins down at him. "But it's all right. The end result is just to do something that feels good. If we have to get a few things out of the way first for that to happen, I'm happy we did it."

"Just something that feels good," Jesper muses. "So I could touch your..." He gestures at Klaus's lap. "I could touch it?"

Klaus coughs.

"I would like to," Jesper adds.

Klaus coughs harder, and Jesper can see his arousal, died down slightly, twitch in his lap. "I'd say most sex involves, um...touching, mouths, or...well. Penetration of some kind. So yes. You could. Touch it."

"To be clear, I wasn't really asking if I could hypothetically," Jesper says, already scooting forward. "Mostly I was asking if I can now. Non-hypothetically."

"Oh. Yes."

Jesper touches it.

This, he's slightly more familiar with, even if it's not his own. He's touched himself—touched himself thinking of this, even—and while the size of it differs, and the angle from which he's working, it's the same feel, more or less. One hand cannot fit around it entirely, but both of his hands come close at least, and he spends a few moments just in awe, pumping it in his two hands, stopping to rub his thumb over the head, circling over the slit.

"Jesper," Klaus says, strangled, and his thighs flex like he's trying to keep himself thrusting forward.

"Touching," Jesper muses, going back to stroking its length with one hand, the other creeping down to its base and caressing it wonderingly. "And mouths. Anywhere?"

"Just about," Klaus says, his voice so tightly controlled it gives away entirely how much he wants not to be.

"Here?"

Jesper places a thoughtful kiss to the head of Klaus's cock, and this time Klaus groans and does thrust as best he can from his seated position, leading to the tip glancing off Jesper's lips and onto his cheek, a streak of fluid showing its journey. Jesper swipes at the streak with two fingers and almost experimentally puts it in his mouth.

(_Almost_ experimentally, because he'd seen how strongly Klaus reacted to the kiss, and he knows that this might be a natural extension. Who's Mr. Sexy now?

...He's not calling himself Mr. Sexy. That's dumb.)

"Not bad," Jesper says, which is a bit generous because it's bitter and musky, but then again so is his, from what he recalls of when he'd gone experimental on his own time. 

"Jesper," Klaus repeats with a tinge of desperation, "Please—"

"Sh," Jesper says dismissively. "I'm learning. Penetration?" This one he frowns at. "Where?"

"Well...with a woman it's...you know."

Jesper does not, technically, know. But he has no interest in women regardless, so he nods his head and waits.

"On a man, I've heard, there is great pleasure to be had through, ah...well...through the entrance in one's buttocks."

Jesper looks at Klaus's dick, then thinks of the hole in his backside.

"I can learn about that one later," he says, swallowing.

"Others have often not been able to manage it—" Klaus starts apologetically.

Jesper's competitive edge rears its head, and he scowls. "I said later, not never, didn't I? I'll find a way."

"I mean, you could always—to me—"

"I'll _find_ a _way."_ Jesper sniffs haughtily. "But not now." He doesn't know what the alternative Klaus was proposing could be, but they'll have time to get into it. Also later, when Jesper's pride isn't wounded.

Klaus hides a smile behind his arm. "All right."

"Shush," Jesper says, even though Klaus hasn't technically said anything, and simultaneously runs a feather-light finger up his shaft so he will shush properly.

"You know, I did also do...well, sometimes." Klaus speaks despite the order, but Jesper is pleased at least to see him clench his teeth in between sentences. "It's not quite penetration, but in a similar vein..."

"What is it?"

"One can put one's legs together to form something sort of like an opening that the other person can, well, thrust into."

"Hm." Jesper doesn't know how that works, but it sounds...fine? "Sure. Fine. We can do that one."

"We don't have to—"

"No, I want to try." Jesper claps his hands together. "Okay. Go."

God _damn_ it all, Klaus is trying not to laugh again.

"I'll get some oil from my bedside," Klaus murmurs, reaching past Jesper to do so. "To make the movement easier."

Once the oil is in hand, though, even Klaus seems somewhat stymied as to how to move forward. "Okay," he eventually says. "We can try it like this. If you lie down and I lie down behind you—"

Jesper follows his instructions like a good student, slathering his thighs in the oil Klaus produced and lying down on his side so that Klaus can lie behind him like a warm, comforting blanket that is...going to fuck him.

Scratch that. Analogies really aren't his friend tonight.

"I wasn't aware so much choreography was involved in this whole business," Jesper says, bumping back against Klaus mostly just to hear the noise he makes when he does it. "Even the town dancers would be impressed."

"Please never bring it up with them regardless," Klaus says. "And it doesn't have to, just—"

"No, I chose this." Jesper gives a firm nod. "It's fine. Are we all...set?"

Klaus edges closer, so that he's right back up against Jesper, his hand running over Jesper's arm comfortingly. "Almost." He raises Jesper's leg with one hand, and then Jesper can feel the weight of Klaus on his thigh, see his tip when he peers down. Klaus sets down the other leg with the same gentleness with which he lifted, and Jesper gasps when his next move is to settle his hand on Jesper's cock. It engulfs it entirely, effortlessly, and Jesper couldn't hold back his whine at the sight if he tried.

"Ready?" Klaus says, strained but patient.

"Of course."

Klaus presses a kiss to the top of his head and then starts to move. He thrusts slowly forward, then pulls back. Forward, then back. The rhythm would almost be hypnotizing if it weren't for Klaus's hand stroking Jesper with that same slow, relaxed rhythm, if it weren't for the sound of his labored breathing, if it weren't for how Jesper can see Klaus's dick emerging from between his thighs over and over again.

But maybe he is hypnotized still, because reaching his hand down on one of Klaus's forward thrusts and sliding his fingers over the head feels like something he doesn't know he was going to do until he's done it, and until Klaus groans and presses another kiss, this time to the nape of Jesper's neck. "Jesper, you—"

"You can go faster," Jesper says, from within the same dream.

"God. God, Jesper, my dear heart—"

He moves faster, first faltering and then more surely, and his hand strokes Jesper in time, and then suddenly increases the width of its grasp so that each time he pumps forward, the hand guides his girth to rub against Jesper also.

Jesper moans unabashedly, throwing back his head to meet Klaus's chest behind him, digging his free hand back into Klaus's hair until the hair tie keeping everything together slides off and onto the bed. "Holy shit," he says, dazed, "Klaus, it feels so—oh my God, Klaus." The electricity in his abdomen starts to coil tighter and tighter, sending sparks down his legs and making his toes curl.

"Faster?" Klaus asks desperately, and Jesper nods as emphatically as he can. Klaus goes faster—not by much—but also harder, slamming his hips against Jesper with such force that Jesper cries out and clamps down his thighs, fearing he'll fly away, wondering if he already has.

"Klaus," he wails, "Klaus, I think I'm—"

"It's fine," Klaus ekes out between thrusts. "You can let go." And he stops on a forward thrust, gripping them both together with a sure, giant hand, and Jesper lurches forward, and the ball of electricity condenses and explodes.

He's orgasmed before, of course, though not actually very often, but this—this, with Klaus behind him, with Klaus's hand on him—has an extra element to it that makes everything feel better, and more, and almost-too-much. He groans loudly through it, toes extending so far they're near to cramping, hearing going out while his blood rushes through his head. "Oh my God," he thinks he keeps saying, and "Klaus," but none of that really feels so important as riding out the wave of pleasure rolling through him.

When he comes back to himself, and his hearing comes back in, he can feel Klaus back to pounding against him, panting heavily. "Fuck, Jesper," he growls, "You don't even know, do you—God, how you _sound_—"

Jesper would like to be flattered, and is, but his dick feels tingly and painful when it rubs against Klaus's, and he can't help the hiss of pain that escapes him. Klaus stops immediately. Jesper winces.

"Does it hurt?" Klaus asks, predictably worried, because he's very sweet.

"A little," Jesper hedges. "In a little while...you know, I'm sure..."

"No, it's fine," Klaus says, predictably, for the same reason as above. "I can just...well, in the other room..."

Jesper is mostly full of happy orgasm feelings right now, but that makes him whip around and glare at Klaus. "What?! And let me miss out on seeing you come?!"

Klaus stares at him, and, probably also predictably, starts laughing.

Jesper can acknowledge that this one is probably justified.

"I mean, I'm more than happy to stay in here for it, too."

"No," Jesper says. "I mean, yes. But you're making it sound like I won't help."

"You don't—"

"Have to, yes, I know. But." Jesper holds up a finger. "Mouths."

"...What?"

"Mouths," Jesper repeats. "Lie against the pillows or something."

"Because mouths."

"Because mouths, yes." Klaus bemusedly does as asked, and Jesper gives his best wink before zeroing in on the prize and licking a long stripe up Klaus's cock.

It tastes (predictably) like oil. He'll deal.

"Oh," Klaus says distantly.

Jesper doesn't think he can fit his whole mouth around it, and he doesn't exactly know what he's doing, but Klaus told him that was fine, so if he fucks it up then it's Klaus's fault. Or something. He tries to mimic some of the technique Klaus used earlier on Jesper's nipple, for lack of any other guidance to that end, and watches Klaus to see when his face changes—a furrow of the brow when he uses his hands to rub along the base, a labored exhale when he licks at the large vein on the bottom, a sharp inhale when he does his best to suck part of the head in or licks at the slit.

"You can touch me," Jesper says in a brief reprieve, looking at Klaus's hands clenched at his sides. 

"I don't think—"

"Good." 

Klaus looks like he's trying to give Jesper a stern look, but he's clenching his teeth too, so it mostly leaves him looking odd. But he does, after a while, sigh and put a hesitant hand on Jesper's back, so that's all right, and then eventually that hand moves down to his ass, kneading at it possessively, so that's even nicer. Nice enough, in fact, that Jesper's dick starts to take interest in the whole situation again, perking up between Jesper's legs, but Jesper has a different objective in mind at the moment so it'll have to wait.

Klaus likes it when he's loud, when he keeps making noise while he works. He likes it when Jesper keeps eye contact. He likes when Jesper palms at his balls, or goes even further and reaches an experimental finger to circle at his entrance, which is something to keep in mind for another day. But overall, he really does seem to like most of what Jesper does, possibly just because it's Jesper doing it, and it's not all too long before he's jerking his hips rhythmically forward and saying, "Jesper, I'm so close, sweetheart, I'm nearly there."

Jesper obligingly keeps going, drinking in the flush on Klaus's cheeks, and how he bites at his lips, and then—how he doesn't make any noise at all when he comes, just opens his mouth noiselessly, like a silent scream. And also, how he just _keeps coming,_ and how given Jesper's location, almost all of it lands on his face. And also, that he likes it.

It should be disgusting, but Jesper knows _he did that,_ that _he_ is the one and the _only _one who made this happen, and he could walk outside right now—he wouldn't, but on principle—and everybody would know who did this, and that he was the cause, and that Klaus is his.

He is reminded rather suddenly of how very interested his dick has become, almost achingly so, and a kind of frenzy overtakes him as he clambers atop Klaus's chest again like earlier. He doesn't have much of a plan, just wants to mark Klaus as his too, and so it is that he starts to rut against Klaus's chest. There's no rhythm to it, nothing of the rolling of waves Klaus had introduced earlier, but he doesn't really mind. Klaus is there, and he's recovered enough that he's watching Jesper atop him with wide, reverent eyes, and he's got his hands on Jesper's hips, helping to push Jesper into him, until everything coils and explodes again and he's come all over Klaus's chest, matting his chest hair terribly.

"Well," Klaus says breathlessly after a few moments.

Jesper collapses and rolls over to Klaus's side, cuddling in there with a kind of vehemence. "Don't say anything."

"Not even if I was going to say that you're one of the most astonishing creatures I've ever met?"

Jesper nuzzles in even further. He is, presumably, getting Klaus's spend all over his side, which might be rude of him. He can't really be bothered to care. "You can say that."

"Consider it said."

"Thanks, then. You're pretty good too." A pause. "If you laugh, I'm leaving."

Klaus kisses his head. His chest is rumbling. He's laughing, but quietly. "No, you're not."

"I'm not," Jesper agrees. 

"And I appreciate that immensely."

The tone is teasing, but he gets the sense the words are not. They both lie silently in that knowledge, and in the comfort of being with someone you love, especially on the first day of knowing they love you back.

He's feeling awfully tired, all of a sudden, and Klaus is very cozy and warm next to him. He should probably do something about what's on his face, and Klaus's chest, and that wet spot on the bed that is presumably...somewhere. 

"I'll take care of it," Klaus says, pressing another kiss to the top of his head, and then both his eyelids, which he hadn't quite realized he'd closed. "You can sleep."

"All right," Jesper says, and does.

* * *

When he wakes up later, he's been cleaned up, and there are a second pair of sheets set out on the nightstand. Klaus isn't next to him like he expects, but the blanket is tucked firmly over him, and he can hear Klaus outside the door.

He takes the blanket with him, wrapping it around himself, and walks to where he is. "I'm sorry. If you'd woken me up I would've helped with the dishes."

"I know. You looked comfortable."

"Well, I probably was. Your bed is amazing."

He can see Klaus's smile from here, lit by the candlelight, and it warms him just as much as wearing clothes might've, if he'd done that. Which might've been a better decision, but. Well. "Glad to know it. I'd like it if you used it more often."

"I mean, the bed isn't the main attraction."

Klaus purses his lips, then looks down with almost comic exaggeration.

It's embarrassing that Jesper still blushes, given the events of earlier, but he definitely does. "No! I mean that's great, but no! I was trying to be—I mean, I was saying you're—" He crosses his arms. "I'm aware you're teasing me, but given I'm trying to say I love you, that seems a little bit impolite."

Klaus's smile returns, pleased and somewhat shy, and he drops the dish in the bucket of soapy water and walks silently over to Jesper to gather him up in a hug.

He's not wearing a shirt, but this seems the wrong time to be distracted about that, so Jesper just hugs him back, and squeezes him a bit tighter because he thinks maybe a part of him understands what the hug is saying: thank you for still being here, thank you for that not being the only reason you stayed, thank you for loving me.

"I should get another blanket," Klaus says into the evening.

"What?" Jesper casts his mind back to earlier that evening. "The one to have one to lend thing? You know I was talking out my ass, right?"

"I know," Klaus says. "I just don't want you to be cold."

Jesper would love to say something sweet here, about how he doesn't think he ever will be again, not with Klaus around, about how he's the only one he needs to keep warm. But he's shivering, right now, which may have been why Klaus said something in the first place.

"Okay," Jesper says. "I'll buy one and bring it here."

"I'll give you something to trade for it. It's my blanket," Klaus counters.

"That you're getting for me."

"That's in my house."

Jesper narrows his eyes at Klaus, who looks steadily down at him, and decides maybe he'll just let him take care of him this time.

"Okay," he says, resting his head against Klaus again. 

(He can get Klaus a third blanket with his own savings. Two to have, one to lend, or something. 

Maybe he's starting to understand what Klaus means by the force of nature thing. A little bit.)

So, Jesper has discovered a lot of things since coming to Smeerensburg.

The importance of multiple blankets, for example, even if your partner is a space heater. Or the less tangible stuff—how it feels to wake up and have someone smiling back at you, or to come back into the city and have people waiting for you. Even if those people are your customers, and also your best friend Alva, who had taken your mail-sleigh the minute she'd been ushered out of the house.

"What if I hadn't stayed the night?" Jesper had shrilled.

Alva had looked at him with both eyebrows raised.

"Okay, true," he'd conceded, and then she'd made him promise details 'in exchange for wingmanning so well', and when he'd brought into question her wingmanning, she'd threatened to tell all the kids at school that Mr. Postman is in love and that they should ask him for details if they want to know with whom.

He does not question any further, and he gives her the requested details at a later date.

Anyway.

And then there's the last thing. He's not going to be cheesy and say he's discovered love, or something like that. Love isn't anything he discovered, anyway; it's something that people have been doing for a long time and will keep doing long after he's gone, and something that he always had, just...buried down a bit deeper.

So he didn't discover love, not exactly. But he did find Klaus, and Klaus found him.

Frankly, he thinks that's even better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all this chapter is like 6.5k words. i stayed up til 4am writing it bc i wanted to be Done but it kept being longer and not being done. but now it is ig. this meandering, repetitive, weird sex behemoth. can you find every instance of me using their dialogue to make fun of sex in general and their sex in particular? a fun activity
> 
> elements of research in this chapter included: finding screenshots of jesper's coat trying to find out how it comes undone, glossing over it anyway, finding screenshots of jesper in suspenders trying to find where it connects, failing to find this out and looking up old examples of mens suspenders and how they connect, glossing over it anyway, scanning through the movie to find examples of their height difference so i could find where klaus's dick would land on jesper's body, ???ing over the stylization because despite uh EVERYTHING klaus's waist and jesper's appear to be at similar places bc klaus is so top heavy, staring at it a while longer before deciding maybe i should just gloss over it anyway,,, 
> 
> look y'all i'm gay and asexual it's not like i fuckin know anything about dicks in the first place lol. or any of this. how does one lick a nip? fuck if i know! it was 2am!!! even if i werent 2am i wouldn't have been bestowed any nip knowledge! (knipledge?) (no let's scrap that right here and now, let it die at the place of its unfortuitous birth)
> 
> anyway i did one of my trademark cheesy bookends bc you KNO i love my cheesy bookends and that's it, there we are, there's the end. finally. while i've been rather publicly bemoaning the length of this lol i am very grateful for all of you guys' support, you're all very sweet and i appreciate you stickin with me! i can't say for sure if i'll write another klaus fic--i have ideas but also uhhhhh depression lol--but either way i hope to see y'all on another fic someday, and thank you again!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this! my twitter is [@boringbibs](https://twitter.com/boringbibs), i also have a tumblr at [anuninterestingperson](https://anuninterestingperson.tumblr.com) but i'm afraid i barely use that anymore lol
> 
> look.......look. you can criticize me for writing this if you want (please don't tho i'm delicate) but there's just too much gay in the movie not to


End file.
